


Terra Firma

by larkscape



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Clone Memory Integration, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Angst, Post-s7e01, Sharing a Bed, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 05:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkscape/pseuds/larkscape
Summary: Keith's made it to the doorway, but he only gets one foot into the hall before he stops, shakes his head decisively, and rushes back to Shiro’s side. “No, no, this isn’t going to work. Every time I take my eyes off you, you figure out a new way to disappear. Can you stand?”“I’m not sure, I—ah.”Keith has picked him up in a bridal carry. The contact blazes through Shiro like electricity.Shiro spent a long time in the astral plane.





	Terra Firma

**Author's Note:**

> 🎶 happy birthday to me  
> happy birthday to me  
> here, have some sheith fic  
> happy birthday to me 🎶
> 
> I could edit this down but I just wanna roll around in feeeeeelings. (And it's been sitting in my drafts for way too long.) Enjoy!

 

_ “So!” Lance says, energetic as always. “Ready to charge up the lions?” _

_ Shiro chuckles. “It’s good to be back.” _

 

Everyone else has cleared out of Black to fly the other lions to the faunatoninum, but Keith has yet to let go of Shiro’s shoulder.

Shiro doesn’t mind. Shiro doesn’t mind in the slightest. It’s good to feel real again, to feel solid, to sit here in the healing pod with metal and glass under him and the living warmth from Keith’s hand seeping through the armor undersuit into his skin. To know that he’s  _ really here. _ Finally.

He spent far too long in that intangible place. And yet he’s been here, too — the clone’s memories overlay with his own in strange ways, confusing, and it’s difficult to tell them apart. While he was staring into an endless field of stars inside Black and feeling useless, he was also in the castleship suffering headaches, unsettling dreams that never quite tipped over into nightmares, strange lapses in his temper. (Haggar in his head; the memory is still a violation, even if it wasn’t really him, because that’s the thing, isn’t it? It  _ was _ him. Or close enough.)

But Keith’s been gone either way, no matter which set of memories he checks.

Keith has obviously missed him, too, if the way he keeps looking at him is any indicator. Keith has fought so hard for him for so long that it’s left permanent impressions around his eyes, in the set of his mouth; he looks at Shiro and his smile is soft and happy but it still holds something wistful, like he’s savoring the minutes, knowing they could run out at any time.

Shiro smiles back and lifts his hand up to cover Keith’s, gripping lightly in wordless reassurance, but the faint crease of strain between Keith’s brows remains.

Lance’s voice floats from Keith’s discarded helmet, tinny with the distance, and the moment breaks.

“Keith, buddy, where are you? Black’s dinner is waiting for her! There’s not going to be any left if you don’t get here soon!”

“I don't think that's how it works, Lance,” Keith replies, but he doesn’t move from where he’s kneeling next to Shiro.

"What are you still doing down here?” Shiro asks, tone purposefully light. “Go on, get up to the cockpit and take us away. Black’s just as low on power as the rest of the lions.”

Keith’s fingers tighten.

“Don’t wait on my account, Keith. I’ll be fine.” Shiro drops his arm to brace against the edge of the pod and begins to lever himself up. Oh, it’s going to be interesting trying to stand; he feels like he’s been through a tumble dry cycle, wobbly and bruised. He doesn’t really want to lose Keith’s hand on his shoulder, either, but he pushes back that particular pang as unworthy.

The struggle must show on his face, because, with a frustrated noise, Keith presses him back down.  _ “Stay. Here.” _

“Keith—”

“No. You're not going anywhere. Stay in the pod and just… keep talking to me?”

There’s a particular note in Keith’s voice, an almost shy longing, that Shiro has only heard on a very few occasions but which never fails to make his heart fold like paper. He says, “Of course,” and settles right back into the pod. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Anything. I just need to— to hear you, to know you haven’t gone away again. I’ll fly us to the faunatoninum as quick as I can, and then I’ll be right back here.” Then, like he hasn't just crumpled Shiro's paper heart into a ball, Keith gives the floor a fond pat and adds, “Black, you’ve got mics in here, right? Can you help us out?”

The floor doesn’t actually vibrate, but Shiro can still feel the lion’s answering rumble. Keith pats the deck again and looks at Shiro, then rises to his feet with a grimace.

As soon as his hand falls away from Shiro’s shoulder, the warmth starts seeping away. Shiro doesn't let himself chase it.

He searches for something to talk about that doesn’t involve his— his death, his long stay in the astral plane, the clone, Haggar, their fight, the way he— god, the way he nearly killed Keith. The way he left him yet again, however unwilling. None of those are things Shiro wants to think about overmuch, and they’re not conducive to keeping Keith calm and happy, either, which is the goal here.

That doesn’t leave much. He pushes his memory back further, and shreds of his dream return to him.

“It’s been a long time since the last time we raced in the canyon behind the Garrison. Think you might want to take the bikes out when we get back to Earth?”

A smile spreads over Keith’s face. “I’d like that.”

Shiro starts to lean one elbow on the lip of the pod, but has to catch himself with his left hand before he remembers that, of course, he doesn’t have the right arm anymore.

(His momentary sense of loss twists into something with teeth. He’s glad the thing is gone, after what it did to him, after what it did to  _ Keith; _ if Keith hadn’t already cut it off, Shiro would’ve done it himself. He doesn’t want Haggar’s marks on him, doesn’t want any connection with her, especially not one that can be exploited like that—

_ —no. _ Now is not the time. Redirect.)

How’s he going to ride a hoverbike like this, though? It’s difficult to race when you don’t have a hand to turn the throttle.

Keith, watching him glare at the empty space his right arm should occupy, gives him a pointed look. “How about I drive and you ride with me?”

“No, I was thinking that I could just ride one-handed. I don’t need the throttle  _ and _ the brake, do I? One or the other should be enough.” Keith gives him a look of exasperation that is so familiar it makes his breath catch. Shiro laughs ruefully. “All right, I guess yours sounds like the better plan.”

“You know, racing with you out there is the thing I miss most about being on Earth.”

“Me, too,” Shiro replies, voice soft.

“Hey, Shiro,” Keith says after a moment. Shiro looks up to see him walking slowly backward toward the door, lips tipped up in a tiny smile. “I used the cliff dive you taught me to escape Garrison security when we were breaking you out. Did I ever tell you about that?”

“Breaking— oh, when you took me to your place after the crash? No, you've never mentioned.”

“Yeah. We had all of us — me and you, Pidge, Lance, and Hunk — all on one hoverbike. We barely cleared the ground. Pidge had to hold you up the whole way, too.” Keith's brow creases, doubtless at the memory of  _ why _ Shiro had been unconscious: drugged by the very people he'd been trying to warn.

“And you still took the cliff, even with all that extra weight?” Shiro asks, trying to reroute to happier thoughts.

“Didn't have much choice. Besides, I'd been practicing.” Keith gives him a mischievous look, allowing the diversion. “I knew it would be fine, but that didn't stop me from threatening to jettison Lance.”

“That sounds like you,” Shiro says with a chuckle. Honestly, he shouldn't be surprised; he's long known Keith is a daredevil down to his core. Yet another entry in the list of ways they match up. “I was just thinking of that time you spooked a mountain lion. Remember that? When you shot over that little overhang out past the point rock? I don't know who was more surprised, you or her.”

Keith's laugh bubbles up, bright and infectious. “I thought I was going to lose my leg when she swatted at me.”

“And then you revved the engines and she jumped straight in the air, all four paws—”

“Like one of those cat videos! Oh man, she was so angry after that, she must’ve had cubs somewhere—”

“I swear, my life passed before my eyes when I heard that roar right as you dipped out of sight behind the ledge—”

Keith’s made it to the doorway, but he only gets one foot into the hall before he stops, shakes his head decisively, and rushes back to Shiro’s side. “No, no, this isn’t going to work. Every time I take my eyes off you, you figure out a new way to disappear. Can you stand?”

“I’m not sure, I—  _ ah.” _

Keith has picked him up in a bridal carry.

The contact blazes through him like electricity. He can’t help his shiver. Keith holds him tighter.

God, when did Keith get so solid? He’s always been strong, the sort of gritted-teeth scrappiness that comes from having to fight for every inch he ever got, and he’s never had any issue throwing and pinning Shiro when they spar, but this easy lift is new. Shiro remembers stuttering at the breadth of those shoulders after Keith’s return from the Quantum Abyss (no, not him,  _ clone _ him, or— that’s going to take a while to sort out) but in the confusion of the fight at the cloning facility, he hadn't really had a chance to internalize it.

Now Keith is carrying him effortlessly down the hall to the cockpit. Shiro’s lungs don’t quite want to inflate fully.

 

He’s sitting in Keith’s lap.

Keith still refuses to let him go, so when they reached the cockpit, Keith just sat down with Shiro still in his arms and now Shiro is in his lap, slumped against his chest.

Shiro is hyper-aware of Keith’s arms on the flight controls caging him in, of Keith’s legs under him, of every single searing point of contact between them. And there are  _ so many. _ His skin tingles under his armor everywhere they touch.

Absurdly, all he wants to do is bury his face in Keith’s neck and inhale. Breathe him in.

It’s new, this all-consuming awareness. Shiro’s not sure why he’s reacting so strongly — but no, now that he thinks about it, he does know why.

He’s been in the astral plane for months. Ghostly, unreal, intangible. Trapped in an unchanging landscape of false stars and impossible colors, unable to reach anyone. And sure, he has memories of being on the castleship, being in the real world, but that doesn’t negate the fact that for him, for  _ him _ him, this is the first physical sensation he’s felt since… well, he's not going to think about the specifics. It's been a long time. A very long time.

Plus, it’s  _ Keith. _

He gives in, because he’s weak sometimes and Keith of all people is safe to be weak around, because he’s still exhausted (being resurrected will do that to you, he supposes) and Keith put him in his lap. Because he  _ wants _ to, and surely the universe owes him a break by now.

He drops his head to Keith’s shoulder and turns until his brow bone finds the hollow under Keith’s jaw. He closes his eyes.

Keith makes a soft sound and tilts his head into Shiro's.

They fly.

 

Keith rouses him from his dozing once they’ve landed and Black is recharging.

Slowly, careful of his overtired limbs, Shiro climbs from Keith's lap and out of the pilot seat. Keith keeps one hand on his shoulder the whole time. A good thing, too; as soon as Shiro sets his feet on the metal deck, his rubbery knees try to give out from under him and Keith’s grip is all that keeps him upright.

It triggers a flash in his mind’s eye: crossed blades, pressure inside his head, a raging inferno of will and power and Haggar’s tight grasp, and in the center of it all, Keith’s eyes, his voice—

_ “You’re my brother. I love you.” _

The memory crackles at the edges, but this image is clear: Keith, all desperation, at the very limits of his endurance, pushed to the brink and he  _ still _ wouldn’t give up on Shiro. Even when Shiro was trying to kill him, even when Shiro’s arm (a weapon, Haggar was still making him a weapon, even then) was so close that the power seared a mark into Keith’s skin—

“Careful, Shiro,” Keith murmurs, pulling him from the rabbit warren of painful memory, from mental images glitching like a corrupted feed. Him-but-not-him. “Let’s get you laying down for some real rest.”

Shiro wants to apologize, but he has no idea where to start. The sense memory of forcing down Keith’s blade lingers, as does the sour taste on the back of his tongue from cruel words he could never mean but said anyway, and it’s all tangled in the electric-shock feeling of the clone’s memories and the crushing weight of Haggar’s control. It makes him ache.

“Keith…” he starts, and he can hear the cracks in his voice, but Keith just smiles at him and all the words die on his tongue. He can’t help but smile weakly back.

“Wasn’t I resting in the pod?” he asks, instead of anything else.

Keith huffs. “No, you were fighting for your life in there. That’s not rest.”

He winds his arm more firmly around Shiro’s ribs, under the wreck of his right shoulder, and doesn’t let go as they shuffle down the hall. Shirio, beneath the singing of his nerves  _ (contact, touch, Keith’s hands and his warmth), _ is quietly grateful.

The brief moments of rest have revived Shiro a bit; he feels less bone-draggingly tired and instead is free to be overwhelmed by how desperate he is for contact. Keith’s arm around him feels like desert sunlight, so hot it almost burns but warming him down to his very core, heating up places he hadn’t known were icy. Searing away painful memories, centering him in  _ now. _ When he lurches sideways — he wishes he could say it was purposeful, but he really is that unsteady on his feet — and Keith presses close all along his right side, it’s a line of melting fire that threatens to tip him all over again.

They’re halfway to the nook that houses the bunks when Shiro pauses, gripped by a sudden longing.

“Keith.” It feels selfish to ask, but— “Can we go outside?”

“Sure,” Keith replies, then glances sharply at him. “Wait, right now? Don't you want to lie down? You can hardly walk.”

Shiro shrugs. “I just… want to feel the sunlight for a little while.”

It’s been so long since he could just stand and breathe and  _ feel. _ Even with its endless spreading horizon, the mindscape had felt claustrophobic. Nothing was real there. Too still. Dead. ( _ He _ was dead. The thought still sends a shiver through him, makes his mind shy away.) He’s desperate for a breeze, the smell of dirt, for something to make him feel present and grounded again.

“Okay. Of course.” Keith smiles at him, and it’s just as warm as the sun Shiro wants to feel. Keith turns them around and leads him to Black's entrance with sure steps.

The ground outside is smooth and level, and there’s a flat-topped boulder at the edge of the clearing that’s perfect for sitting on, and the rest of the team is somewhere just within earshot, their chatter unintelligible with distance but pleasant to hear, and Shiro is so intensely grateful to be here. It floods him like the light of sunrise seen from space, a wondrous, sweeping rush from scalp to toes. He’d thought he would never have this again. Thought he’d be trapped in Black forever, relegated to watching, to lifeless air and imaginary stars and looking on in helpless anguish as Haggar’s clone tried to tear apart everything he held dear.

And now he’s here. Back in his body, or at least a version of his body, able to feel the wind, to touch the rock under them, to feel the tingle in his skin where Keith brushes up against his shoulder (god, even through their armor, the touch makes him want to lean in harder; he's a _ mess _ ), to breathe in the fresh green smell of the trees and the comfortingly familiar scent of Keith’s sun-warmed hair.

All because of Keith.

Because Keith refused to give up on him, even when it seemed all hope was lost. Because Keith tried to reach him to the very end.

When Keith tilts his head, the sunlight catches in his hair, and it’s such a perfect sight that Shiro suddenly needs to touch to make sure it’s real. He tries to reach out with his arm — his missing right arm — and his body pauses belatedly, and his mind pauses, too, because—

_ —oh. _

Huh.

He’s in love with Keith.

…He’s  _ in love _ with Keith.

The realization spreads like warm honey through Shiro’s whole body, tinglingly sweet. Shiro has loved Keith in some way ever since the day this sullen loner kid breezed through the simulator test and then stole his car, but the warmth in his chest now is something different than that ages-old feeling; it's something vital and radiant. Keith is lit up under an alien sun, and Shiro wants nothing more than to touch his hair and see him smile.

Of _ course _ he's in love with Keith. He has to stifle the urge to laugh at himself. How the hell did he miss it?

Recognizing he’s in love seems like it should be some profound, weighty moment, Shiro thinks, but… it’s not. It’s comfortable. He’s been in love with Keith for ages, hasn’t he? Quietly simmering somewhere deep in his soul, no less genuine for going unnoticed. Steady. Unhurried.

_ Keith _ is synonymous with  _ home, _ and with  _ adventure, _ and  _ safety, _ and  _ joy. _ He occupies the place right next to the stars in Shiro’s heart, and if that doesn’t say it, then nothing will.

He’s in love with Keith. For all it should have been obvious, it still stuns him.

“Shiro?” Keith asks; he must have noticed Shiro’s aborted movement.

The feeling isn’t urgent. It needs no words.

“Nothing,” Shiro says with a smile. Keith keeps watching him for a moment, then hums and bumps their shoulders together lightly — and there’s that tingle again, spreading from the point of contact all the way down Shiro’s spine. So maybe it’s not just touch starvation that's got Shiro so reactive. Maybe it’s Keith himself, too.

Keith stays close up against him the whole time, leaning their sides together. Solid, alive, real. Every time Shiro looks over, Keith is watching him, and he looks more at peace than Shiro has seen him in a long time.

Shiro soaks in the sunlight and Keith’s warmth and lets the idea of loving Keith settle into the space between his lungs.

It feels  _ right. _ It feels like it's been there all along.

 

They stay out for a long, languid stretch of time, basking like cats in the afternoon sun. Shiro is content to let this new knowledge, this old love, curl up inside him and purr. It doesn’t matter whether Keith feels the same, because Shiro will feel it regardless, and that’s more than enough.

Just being here, shoulder to startlingly-broad shoulder with Keith, is more than enough.

Eventually, though, he can no longer hold back the yawn threatening to crack his jaw, or the creeping awareness of their situation — castle-less, on the run from half the known universe, heading back to a planet he’d all but given up hope of ever seeing again. Keith nudges him when he yawns a second time, then pulls him up from his perch on the rock and starts them across the clearing toward Black. Shiro feels steadier on his feet now, but Keith stays close anyway.

“I feel like I should be doing something to help,” Shiro says. “I’ve been stuck on the sidelines so long…”

“Shiro.” Keith gives him a gently chiding look as he leads him up the ramp into Black's interior. “Trust the team. We've got everything handled.”

“I know, it's just—”

“The lions are charging up and we're safe here for a while. You heard Coran; there’s still repairs to be done, too, so it'll be some time before we can go anywhere anyway. Just relax, all right? Rest.”

With a rueful smile, Shiro says, “I’ve never been any good at taking vacations.”

“Believe me, I’m aware.”

Keith is still tucked up under the mechanical stump of Shiro’s right arm as he guides them deeper into the ship — and that's the first place he went, Shiro remembers. The image is clear even with the blurry fog of waking up in a new body full of old memories: Keith came straight to Shiro’s side as soon as the healing pod opened, like a reflex. He's always been Shiro's right hand man, always there to guard his flank, to challenge him, to keep him going. The universal constant of Keith, a physical law unto himself.

Shiro loves him so much that it aches. He doesn’t know how he didn’t realize before. Long familiarity, perhaps; it’s the kind of feeling that grows like ivy, quiet but pervasive, sneaking in unnoticed until one day you wake up and find that it’s tangled in everything.

He’s always liked ivy.

They're almost to the bunks now. Shiro slows their progress, turns, and hugs Keith to him by the waist — which has remained slight, no matter what those two extra years did to the shoulders above it. He leans in and presses his cheek to Keith's temple. The contact helps soothe the jittery, antsy feeling of forced idleness.

“Keith…” he breathes.

The air between them is warm, and it's quiet here in the depths of the black lion. Keith's eyes close as he accepts Shiro's weight in his arms.

“Rest,” Keith murmurs again, quietly imperative.

Shiro nods slowly. His nose brushes Keith's hair with the movement. “You, too?” he asks. It’s nowhere near nightfall, but Keith’s been going for even longer than Shiro has, and he hasn’t had the benefit of a healing pod. Plus, there's a part of Shiro that's certain that without Keith there to act as an example to follow, Shiro won't be able to find sleep even with the exhaustion dragging on his limbs.

“Yeah,” Keith whispers.

Still, they stand there in the hall for a long while, breathing each other’s air. That’s its own kind of rest.

Shiro is the first to move. He doesn't mean to, but his legs still feel like overcooked noodles and they refuse to hold him up any longer. Keith guides him into the makeshift bedroom, to the cot set up against the wall. Shiro sits down at Keith's gentle push and lets him start unfastening the armor plates from his chest.

Watching Keith work, Shiro remembers another time in the desert, after Adam… after _ Adam, _ when Shiro was struggling to contain the roiling storm inside himself. Keith took him out on their bikes and then kept silent watch over him while he fell apart for a while. This moment feels very much like that time; Keith communicates much better in actions than words, and taking care like this is his way of saying,  _ I'm here for you. _

The last piece of armor falls from Shiro's leg to the floor, leaving him clad only in the black undersuit he’s honestly too tired to even contemplate unzipping. It’s comfortable enough for sleeping. He leans forward to brace his elbow on one knee while Keith starts working on his own armor.

Time goes kind of hazy as Shiro drifts on the edge of dozing. He only stirs when Keith sets a hand on his shoulder again, the touch a bright shock that Shiro still can’t get used to.

“Shiro.”

“Hmm?”

Keith pushes gently until Shiro unfolds and drops flat to the narrow mattress. Then Keith is following him down between the sheets and shuffling Shiro in to face the wall, curling around his spine in a long line of electric contact that makes all Shiro’s nerves hum, tucking himself so close that they both somehow manage to fit on this one-person cot, and Shiro thinks,  _ oh, _ and then,  _ Oh. _

Keith is guarding his back. Keith has him penned in like he’s afraid Shiro is going to disappear.

He gropes blindly until he finds Keith's arm, drags it over himself like a blanket across his ribs, and threads their fingers together.

With a tiny, breathy noise, Keith scrunches up, his whole body squeezing around Shiro, his legs drawing up, arms tight, face pressed into the back of Shiro's neck. Somehow the action makes Shiro feel small and safe and sheltered, regardless of the fact that he's at least a Keith and a half by mass. He makes a pleased hum in the back of his throat and hugs Keith's hand closer.

_ I’m not going anywhere, _ Shiro thinks fervently, listening to the thrum of his own pulse, to Keith’s steady breathing, which tickles his hairline with each exhale.  _ I never want to leave you. _

 

Shiro wakes gasping, thrashing into consciousness.

“—Shiro?” Keith’s voice is worried, hoarse with sleep, and rough like he’s been speaking for a while with no response. In Shiro’s muddled brain, it’s too much like the dream, too much like hearing Keith tell him he loves him in that strained tone while Shiro forces his blade down on Keith’s neck and watches the light go out of his eyes—

“Shiro, you’re dreaming, you’re— wake up, come on.”

“Keith?” Shiro’s heaving air too fast, but he still manages that name.

“Yeah, Shiro, I’m here,” Keith says, sounding relieved. “You’re safe. Hey, shh, you’re okay.”

Shiro is halfway to sitting up, and when did he—? The thin blanket is crumpled over his legs and Keith is almost falling off the edge of the cot, his hands on Shiro’s shoulders but otherwise leaning away. Giving Shiro space, if he needs it.

He doesn’t. Not now. He needs Keith  _ here, _ needs him close and alive, needs to convince himself the dream wasn't real.

“Keith,” he whimpers, his voice cracking. “God, I thought— I watched you die, Keith, I  _ killed _ you—”

“You didn't. I'm here, Shiro. I’m here.”

He reaches for Keith with a shaking hand and Keith meets him halfway, falling forward into Shiro and pulling him into a rough embrace. The move lays them out on the cot again, side by side, curling into each other. Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s ribs and hauls him even closer so he can press a fierce kiss to the side of his head, clinging tight; Keith’s the only still point in a pinwheeling void and Shiro desperately needs his steadiness.

Keith holds him as he shakes, sheltering him in the warm, hidden place between Keith’s cheek and the pillow where they’re surrounded by the curling ends of Keith’s hair, murmuring quiet reassurances as the adrenaline slowly, slowly recedes.

“...shit,” Shiro says, more breath than voice, once his heartbeat has finally slowed. Then, slightly louder, “Sorry.”

The room is dark. The dimness could mean anything here in Black’s windowless interior, but it feels late. He and Keith must have slept right through dinner. He's surprised no one came to wake them — but then again, he's still recovering. Keith, too. The team must have decided that sleep was the more important need.

If only Shiro’s subconscious would let them sleep.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Keith says, quiet but matter-of-fact in that particular  _ Keith _ way Shiro finds so comforting. “It’s not like you’re the only one with nightmares around here. You feeling any better now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m… just really glad it was only a dream. Glad you’re here.” Shiro takes a deep breath, letting the soft scent of Keith’s skin ground him. “Glad you’re safe.”

Keith hums and nudges their cheeks together, his nose to Shiro's ear. His hair is still tickling Shiro’s lips.

“Of course I’m safe. I’m with you.”

“Keith…” Shiro says, and shudders with renewed memory. Words unsaid from earlier press behind his teeth and find their way out. “Safe  _ from me. _ I remember the— the fight. I said things, did things—” He cuts off. The dream is still too close. Keith lifts his head to look at him, and Shiro’s eyes trace the new scar on his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Keith.”

“That was the witch,” Keith says, “not you. You don’t need to apologize. The clone was… warped, at the end. He wasn’t you; you said so, remember? When I found you in the astral plane. I  _ know _ you, Shiro, and I trust you with my life.”

_ “I _ don’t trust me.”

Keith draws a breath — to argue, probably, because Keith has never let Shiro say things like that without a fight — but Shiro keeps talking, trying to keep his voice steady. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I remember how it felt when she was in my head. His head. God, it’s— he wasn’t me, but he  _ was. _ I know what I said to you in the astral plane, but now I have his memories, and Haggar tried to make me— him— hate you, make me _ kill _ you. She very nearly succeeded.” The breath he pulls in shakes all the way down his throat. “I know the connection is gone now, but I can’t help being afraid that she’ll come back and do it again.”

“Shiro,” Keith says, a pained expression crossing his features before he drops his cheek to Shiro's again, arms squeezing. “That’s not gonna happen. But even if it does, I’ll never give up on you. You know that, right? If she tries to take you back, I’ll hunt her down myself.” His voice sharpens. “You’re not hers and she  _ can’t have you.” _

With a wounded noise, Shiro hugs him tighter. “I just… I don’t want to hurt you. I hate that I already did.”

Keith shakes his head, his face rubbing in Shiro’s hair. “I don’t care. You’re here, and that’s all that matters. When I told you I’d save you as many times as it takes, I was being serious.”

“You shouldn’t have to. God, Keith, you’ve been so strong for me. I wish I could return the favor.”

“No one said I have to; I  _ want _ to. You're important to me. And if anything, I'm the one returning a favor.” Keith hides his face deeper in Shiro's neck. “I need you, Shiro.”

Shiro’s heart lists sideways at the vulnerability in Keith’s voice. He squeezes his arm around Keith, and Keith tightens his grasp in return.

“I need you, too,” Shiro admits quietly.

They lie still for a while, holding on. Keith's embrace slowly relaxes, though he stays curled around Shiro, halfway on top of him, weighing him down into the narrow bed like a sandbag. The constant pressure is a comfort. Shiro’s grip on Keith’s waist, initially desperate, gentles until he’s just holding him, stroking his thumb along the dip of his spine.

It feels so good to have Keith with him like this, their limbs all tangled up together. He only wishes he had his other arm so he could hug him more thoroughly. As the memory of the nightmare fades, the tingles are returning, and Shiro burns with the contact.

There’s a slow shift as Keith settles further, his body heavy and supple along Shiro’s side, his cheek pressing against Shiro’s jaw. With unconscious affection, Shiro brushes his lips over Keith’s temple in a gentle almost-kiss. This time, there’s no nightmare to precipitate it, only a surfeit of warm emotion; Shiro realizes halfway through that, natural as it feels, the gesture is not something he’s ever done before. Not like this.

Keith sucks in a tiny breath, stiffening, and abruptly, the atmosphere goes expectant and still. Like the low ebb before the wave. Waiting.

Every heartbeat is unreasonably loud between them.

The two of them have always been close, with an easy intimacy between them, but this moment is different. After his prolonged absence, after both the physical and the emotional distance between them (Haggar, trying to destroy him from the inside and the out), and now, finally, the warmth of their bodies pressed so close, Keith’s face so near to his own… Shiro feels like they're teetering on a cliff edge, about to drop into an unknown ocean, and they're both peering over the brink. The anticipation twists his stomach into knots.

After a handful of breaths, Keith moves again, slow and deliberate. His mouth presses to the side of Shiro's jaw in what is definitely a kiss, though it’s not demanding.

It’s an invitation, of sorts. An offering.

_ If you want. I'm here, I'm open to you. If you want. _

Yes, oh yes, Shiro wants. The feel of Keith’s lips on his skin burns straight through him. If this is an option, he will grab it with the only hand he’s got, and pray that’s enough to keep it.

Keith's being careful, cautious; Shiro can feel it in the way he hesitates just slightly. But he's also daring, the same way he's always been, not afraid to take the leap even when he doesn't know what awaits below the waves. Shiro has always loved that about him. And with the warm weight of his own earlier revelation, and the equally warm weight of Keith wrapped around his side, Shiro knows that the next step is up to him.

Keith has brought them to the ledge, but he won't make Shiro jump.

Shiro loves him, as steady and slow as a banked fire, as urgent and scintillating as a quasar. He wants to give him the whole universe.

The pounding of Keith's heart says that this dive is what he wants more than anything.

Shiro tugs gently on Keith’s waist, pulling the two of them together even tighter. He lets his cheek drag from Keith's temple down across his cheekbone, noses at warm skin, tangles their knees together and holds their bodies close so that he can pull his face back to look at Keith without it feeling like a retreat.

Then he just… looks. Lets his gaze take in the whole of Keith’s face: the light flush on his cheeks, the soft bow of his lips, the dark hair feathering across his brow in sleep-tangled disarray, the vulnerable, trusting look in his violet eyes.

The way Keith watches him right back.

Shiro's breath stutters in his chest. His fingers clench on Keith’s ribs. He's never been so sure of anything in his life, or so paralyzed by possibility.

There’s a moment of frozen anticipation, heavy with potential. It’s a turning point, but it’s a turning point they’ve been barreling headlong toward for a long time now, and if Shiro hadn’t been so distracted with everything else happening then he’d have seen this coming — but it’s here now, and he's so ready for it that even this tiny pause feels like it’ll kill him. So he closes the distance between them.

Keith's eyes fall shut as their lips brush together.

They’re kissing.

Shiro isn’t moving at all now, but he still feels like he’s falling, spinning with vertigo, tipping right over that cliff edge into unknown waters. Keith's lips are dry and smooth against his. There is nothing in the world but the soft press of their mouths, plush and lingering.

The seconds stretch.

In slow motion, their lips break apart. Shiro’s eyes flutter open to find Keith watching him with wonder.

There’s a smile tugging at the corner of Shiro’s cheek and he lets it grow. He feels warm all over. “Keith,” he murmurs. “I love you.”

Oh, it feels so good to say it.

Keith eyes shoot wide, and then the expression softens into the sweetest smile Shiro's ever seen on him. “I love you, too,” he says. The words, the low, intimate tone, that smile — Shiro feels everything inside himself turn to molten gold, and he smiles back helplessly.

Then Keith surges in to kiss him again, deeper this time, more insistent, and the smile gets absorbed into the motion of their lips.

Keith kisses like he flies: he pours his whole being into it, nothing held back, all unerring instinct and passion. Shiro welcomes it and tries to give back his own devotion, tries to communicate to Keith just how much he means to him through this new medium they’re sharing.

“Shiro,” Keith groans, pulling him in tighter.

The kiss is a full-body experience, bringing with it a breathless, awed joy, the same feeling Shiro gets watching the Leonids streak across Earth’s night sky in brilliant white arcs. That makes sense, Shiro thinks vaguely. If any one person could be a meteor shower, it'd be Keith.

Shiro twists further into Keith's embrace and guides him the rest of the way on top as their lips fit together. His every nerve ending is alight. Keith’s hands leave burning trails where they skim over his chest and sides. He settles once Keith is pressing him into the narrow cot and gives himself over to the task of tasting all the different shapes Keith’s mouth can make; there are a lot, as it turns out, each more enticing than the last. He wants to learn them all. He strokes along Keith’s spine, squeezes his waist, runs fingers through his hair, and all the while he keeps their mouths happily busy.

“I know,” Keith murmurs eventually, “you've had a lot,” broken up between kisses, “going on,” lips supple and hot and never, ever still, “but I thought you might never…”

“You were waiting for me,” Shiro says, wondering, and he has to pause for a moment because he's stunned and disarmed and  _ so in love, _ his chest so crowded with affection that he thinks he’ll crack open and spill it everywhere. “God, when did you get so patient?”

“I learned from the best.” Keith raises his eyebrows, then immediately breaks the aloof facade to drop another kiss on Shiro. Now that they've started, it's impossible for either of them to stop. Keith brushes the hair back from Shiro’s forehead, then leaves his hand there, and Shiro’s never felt so solid, so  _ present, _ as he feels when those fingers send pleasant tingles spreading over his scalp. He tilts his head into it.

“You know,” Keith continues mildly, watching him with a smile that sets Shiro’s heart racing, “someone once told me that patience…”

“...yields focus,” Shiro finishes, and huffs a laugh.  _ “Keith.” _

“I’m just glad you finally caught up, oldtimer,” Keith says with a look that's half fondness and half sly provocation. “Took you long enough.”

“Oh, was it a race?” Shiro tugs Keith's blooming smile down to meet his own. Joy fizzes in his veins. He curls his arm around Keith's back and paints a line of kisses along his jaw. “Always knew you were faster than me. Keith.  _ Keith. _ I love you.”

Keith kisses him on the mouth, soft, and his eyes shine when he says, “I love you, too, Shiro. Can I touch you?”

“Aren’t you doing that already?”

Keith gives him an unimpressed look. Shiro laughs a little, and then Keith laughs, too, and for long moments, all is eager hands and warm smiles pressed to each other’s lips— but then Keith's fingers are toying with the zipper tab behind Shiro's neck and Shiro is speared with a need so sudden and sharp that it tears his breath away. His eyes go wide. Keith must see the hunger in them because, with a wide-eyed gaze of his own, he starts to pull the zipper down.

Click, click, click. One tooth at a time. Eyes fixed on Shiro's the whole while.

“Keith,” Shiro breathes.

“Yeah?”

That's the only word he has, though, so he repeats it,  _ “Keith,” _ and strokes up warm fabric and firm muscle until he reaches the back of Keith's neck and finds the zipper there. It's Keith's turn to stop breathing for a moment.

Shiro needs to kiss him again. Not that that need ever stopped in the first place.

Still fingering the zipper tab, he pulls Keith into an open-mouthed kiss, hot and deep. It's brand new, but it also feels like something they've done a thousand times. Keith dives into it, impatient, hungry, and Shiro matches him as need liquefies his spine. He's getting hard in the confines of his undersuit, and that's astonishingly novel; it's been so long since he's felt like this. He's not sure this body has _ ever _ felt like this.

Everything about this, about kissing Keith, touching him, is a dizzying mix of familiar and new.

He moans Keith’s name again, overwhelmed. Keith’s free hand rakes down his chest, and he arches into the contact, muscles shifting under the touch. The zipper under his fingers is beyond his ability to operate; it’s all he can do to hang onto Keith’s neck and whimper pathetically. Even through the fabric, every touch is setting him on fire. He's aching and desperate just from Keith's mouth on his, just from the weight of Keith's hands on his chest and in his hair. When his hips shift, Keith shifts against him, too, and the pressure of a thigh between his legs is enough to have Shiro seeing stars.

It's a hell of a reintroduction to the world of physical touch. He wouldn't trade it for anything.

He longs for Keith in a way that's… familiar, god, he really  _ has _ been oblivious. This is the same flavor of missing that he'd felt the whole time in Black's mindscape; he just hadn't put the right name to it then.

He's found the right name for it now.

“Love you.” He kisses the words into Keith's mouth. He can't stop repeating them, can't help the quiet wonder in his voice, doesn't want to fight the needy grasping in his limbs as he pulls Keith as close as he can get him.

One arm is enough. He'll make it be enough. He slides his hand down Keith's back, pressing firmly, kneading from shoulder to hip. Keith moans and ripples against him, and Shiro is so lit up by the friction that he thinks he might actually come in his undersuit without even getting Keith's hands on his bare skin. Which would be… well, amazing, actually, but also kind of tragic, because the feeling of Keith’s hands on his bare skin is something he’d really like to experience right now.  _ Right _ now, preferably. Within the next few seconds.

With a whine, he presses the back of his neck into Keith's fingers, hoping to encourage him to continue unzipping without having to find the words to ask.

Keith, thank goodness, takes his meaning. He pulls the zip down another inch. Shiro arches under him, lifting up to give him the space to go further, and Keith obliges, until Shiro is unzipped all the way down to his tailbone and Keith’s hands and mouth are peeling the fabric down from his neck.

Shiro gasps when Keith’s lips skim over his bare collar bone. Then Keith’s hands join in, skin to skin in slow strokes down his chest that nudge the undersuit lower, and Shiro shakes under the touch as it fires every nerve ending into overload.

“Ah— fuck—”

“Tell me what you want,” Keith whispers, his lips brushing over the swell of Shiro’s pectoral.

“You,” Shiro says, almost before Keith finishes forming the words, a gut-level plea that he wouldn’t know how to stifle if he tried. “Just— you. God,  _ Keith.” _

“Shiro,” Keith murmurs, “can I…?” He pushes the undersuit down another few inches, exposing the deep cut of muscle above Shiro’s hips, then traces that line with his fingertips. Shiro is someplace where words don't want to form on his tongue anymore. He moans, his voice cracking halfway through when Keith increases the pressure of his fingers.

Keith turns his gaze up to him. “Is that a yes?”

Shiro nods frantically. His head feels loose on his neck. He finds Keith’s zipper again, managing to drag it down an inch or two before he loses both his focus and his grip, because Keith’s shoving Shiro’s undersuit down past his knees in an impatient motion and Shiro has to help kick the thing off.

Then he’s naked, laid out in front of Keith with his cock standing at attention. Keith leans over him, staring blatantly, his eyes wide and dark. For a moment, Shiro feels a stab of self-consciousness — he’s crisscrossed with scars, jagged lines of violence written all over him, made somehow worse by the fact that they were intentionally carved into this cloned body in imitation of the original, not to mention the new damage spreading out from his right shoulder as a horrible reminder of the fight at that facility — but then Keith collapses heavily onto him, pinning Shiro's cock between them, and dives into another thoroughly distracting kiss, so Shiro lets it go. Keith’s obviously not bothered, and that’s enough for him right now.

Keith’s mouth just feels so  _ good, _ all heat and pressure and the light scrape of teeth on his lower lip. Those hands start roaming again, spreading fire up Shiro’s chest, over his shoulders, down his sides. Shiro can’t help the way his hips shift to rub his cock against Keith’s abs. He groans and tangles his fingers in the hair falling across the back of Keith’s neck, pulling him down to kiss him even deeper.

The zipper is  _ right there. _ Shiro catches the pull again, tugging, making a wordless sound of frustration around Keith’s tongue.

“‘Kay,” Keith mumbles, not bothering to stop kissing him, “okay, I’ll— fuck,  _ Shiro.” _

“Why aren’t you naked yet?” Shiro’s words come out garbled and petulant.

Keith pulls back with that sharp grin, the one that promises imminent recklessness, and sits up to unzip himself. “Working on it,” he says. “Where’s all that vaunted patience now?”

“On the floor,” Shiro manages, a little more coherent now that Keith’s not touching him everywhere. “I think you might’ve set it on fire when I wasn’t looking.”

Keith looks at him sharply, a faint blush spreading on his cheeks. “I make you impatient?”

“You make me a lot of things, Keith. Happy. Impressed. Impatient.  _ Horny.” _

The blush intensifies, but Keith’s eyes spark as he wrestles his undersuit off.

Shiro sits up halfway so he can get his hand back on Keith’s waist; this time, there’s bare skin hot under his palm. He marvels at the feel of muscles working as Keith moves. He slides his hand up, from Keith’s stomach to his ribs to his sternum to the back of his neck, and then, after Keith has tossed the undersuit away, curls his fingers there and tugs lightly.

“Come back?” he asks, more tentatively than he intended, but he misses Keith’s weight already, misses his touch and his mouth and the way he makes Shiro feel so very present in this body. Like he belongs here on this tiny cot in the Black Lion, held so tightly in Keith’s arms. Like it’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

“Always,” Keith whispers, and lays back down.

Naked skin is a revelation. Shiro makes a sound like nothing he’s ever made before, guttural and broken, his hand squeezing involuntarily on Keith’s neck, and just…  _ writhes, _ twisting under Keith, feeling all the places where their bodies slide together. It’s an incredible glut of sensation. He can’t hold his eyes open, can’t even kiss back, can only squirm and pant into Keith’s mouth and whine.

“Shiro?” Keith sounds a little concerned. He’s stopped moving.

_ “Keith.” _ Shiro, through great effort of will, slings one leg around Keith’s thigh, planting his foot between Keith’s knees to trap him in place, and rocks his hips so their cocks drag against each other, caught between their naked bodies — which, fuck, he’d thought everything else was good but this is beyond description. His nerve endings are all turned up way past maximum. His whole body lights up with it. Keith groans, grinding down, and Shiro's tongue unsticks enough to manage two more words in a bare whisper:

“Don't stop.”

Keith doesn’t. “Oh my god,” he moans, then kisses him and  _ moves. _

There’s a spiderweb made of fire inside Shiro, connecting his cock to his fingertips, his ribs, his scalp, the backs of his knees; all these places that shouldn’t be erogenous zones catch flame as Keith grabs his hips and drives their cocks together. If this is what prolonged sensory deprivation does to sex, maybe he should look into trying it more— no, never mind, bad idea. But, god, he’ll enjoy the hypersensitivity while it lasts.

And  _ Keith _ — beautiful Keith, wild, dangerous, pinning him down to the cot, hands clutching at him, chest heaving, mouth insistent on Shiro’s, hiding the two of them away in this place of love and heat and the sort of pleasure that could ruin them both. He is so precious that Shiro can hardly believe the feeling is real.

With a hitching whimper, Shiro slings his arm low around Keith’s waist to hold him down and bucks his hips up.

“Oh,” Keith groans, crushing them together, thrusting his cock along the length of Shiro's, his open mouth humid and hot where it drags across Shiro’s cheek.  _ “Fuck, _ Shiro.”

Shiro would return the sentiment if he could, but his own mouth is reserved for moans and sorry attempts at kissing — messy, fumbling things, pressing his lips to whatever he can reach and panting against Keith’s skin as they rock together. He can’t bear to separate them even enough to get his hand around their cocks. The heavy press and arch of Keith’s body feels too good, too primal, too much.

God, he’s burning up from the inside.

Keith sucks air through his teeth with a thin noise, then gasps out another curse and tenses up as he grinds them together.

Just hearing how affected Keith is sends Shiro tumbling into the inferno. He comes so hard he goes silent, his throat closing up, balls tight and cock throbbing for a tense, brilliant moment before he spills messily between them. Keith keeps rutting on him through it, kissing him with uncoordinated desperation, hips bucking in Shiro’s clawing grip for some unmeasurable stretch of time — Shiro’s mind is strung between stars, somewhere far beyond such pedestrian concepts as  _ time _ — until he lets out a choked whine and comes all over Shiro’s stomach.

It takes a long, long while for them to spiral back down.

Keith lays over him, boneless, absently caressing his hip with fingers that occasionally twitch and grab as their breathing calms. Shiro keeps his arm around Keith’s waist and lets his legs fall limp. One slips off the edge of the cot, but he doesn’t bother to move it back up. Too wiped out.

“Wow,” he says eventually.

Keith huffs a tiny, breathy laugh. “Yep.”

“Did we…?”

“Yep,” Keith repeats. 

“I feel like a teenager. Just— rubbing off like that, what are we, fourteen?”

“Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

Shiro laughs. “All right, me neither, but I’m definitely not a teenager anymore. You’ve gotta give me more time than that to recover.”

“...You okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m way better than okay. God, Keith, I feel  _ amazing. _ How are you?”

Keith buries his face in Shiro’s neck, but Shiro can feel the smile blooming there. “Yeah, I’m… I’m good. Very good. You sure you’re—? ‘Cause you seemed, I don’t know, really…”

“I love you.” The sweet fizzing that saying those words rouses in him doesn’t seem like it's going anywhere for a while, and Keith gives him a squeeze and a kiss under his jaw for it, too. “And for the record, I’m, uh, corporeal for the first time in a year. Everything is… very sensitive.”

“Oh.  _ Oh.” _ There’s that reckless grin again; Shiro can hear it in Keith’s voice. “So if I…” Keith draws the tip of his nose in a meandering line up the side of Shiro’s neck that sends pleasant chills all over his body. Then he closes his teeth gently around one earlobe and tugs.

Shiro’s breath hitches. “Yeah,” he squeaks as his cock, limp as it is, tries to twitch with interest.

“Huh.”

“Oh, no, I know that tone; it wasn’t intended as a challenge.”

“Shiro.” Keith rises up on his elbows.  _ “Everything _ is a challenge. You gonna stop me?” Then he leans in and mouths down Shiro’s throat with messy, sucking kisses that make Shiro groan.

“Wouldn’t, ah, wouldn't dream of it. Mmm,  _ Keith.” _

 

It’s much later, with Keith fast asleep and breathing warm across the back of Shiro’s neck, when Shiro finally admits to himself that he’s not getting any more rest that night.

He’s just too twitchy to sleep, no matter how wrung out and pleasantly sore he feels. Too much, too new, too many conflicting memories in his head and too many sensations vying for his attention. He’s had just enough sleep to dull the claws of exhaustion and now it’s no longer enough to pull him under, not even with Keith snug and warm and precious against him.

“…’ro?” Keith mumbles, his voice thick, when Shiro sits up. “What's going on?”

“Nothing, Keith,” Shiro murmurs, petting his shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmmno. You’re awake.”

More’s the pity.

“I might take a lap around the camp,” he says. “Make sure everything’s in order.” Burn off some of the nervous energy. He’s terrible at idleness; maybe the task will trick his hindbrain into thinking he’s being productive. He doesn’t want to leave Keith’s bed, but if it means being able to get back to sleep…

“I'll come with you,” Keith says, awake now. He's always been fast to shed sleep, even back at the Garrison, and time spent with the Blades seems to have only sharpened the propensity.

“Keith, really, you don't need to do that. Get some rest while you can.”

“That goes for you, too, Shiro. Does the word ‘vacation’ mean nothing to you? Wait, who do I think I’m talking to.”

The Blades haven’t done anything to curb Keith’s mid-sleep cycle grumpiness, Shiro notes. In fact, having met Kolivan more than once, Shiro is beginning to think they may have actively encouraged it.

“Sorry,” Shiro says. “I just can’t sleep. I’ve spent so long wanting to help and not being able to, and now that I’ve got the ability again, I— I should be doing something.”

“What would you do? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Go on watch?”

“The lions are on watch,” Keith retorts. “Do you really think they need the backup? They’re sentient robot spaceships.”

“I never said it was rational. I just feel… restless, I guess.” He pauses, then gives Keith a mock-stern look. “And you’re no good at taking vacations, either.”

Keith laughs. “Better than you. I got a lot of practice in the Quantum Abyss.” Gentle fingers brush back Shiro’s forelock. “Black would let me know if there was anything wrong. Everything’s quiet out there.”

“But—”

“Shiro. If I tell you that you’re interrupting  _ my _ vacation, will you quiet down and come back here? Go to sleep. You can worry in the morning.”

“Keith…”

“Shit.” Keith’s face scrunches. “I’m sorry, I know I’m being clingy or whatever. I promise I’ll be better tomorrow, but just… Please don’t make me watch you leave again. Not even to go outside. Not right now.” He’s blushing, almost defiant, with a furrow between his brows, obviously uncomfortable with how bare the words leave him but refusing to retract them. “I only just got you back.”

He doesn’t mean to manipulate, which only makes the guileless pout more effective. That he lets Shiro see the expression at all, that he’s willing to open up like this, is a mark of trust.

Shiro and his paper heart both crumple.

“Okay,” he says, laying back down and pulling Keith with him. He wants to offer reassurances, to promise that he’ll never leave ever again, but the last few years have been an object lesson in intention versus outcome; he doesn’t  _ want _ to disappear, but that has little bearing on whether he  _ will. _

So he gives what he can. He gives the truth.

“I’m not letting you go, Keith. I’ll fight my way back to you. Always. This is where I want to be.”

With a growling, possessive noise, Keith clutches him close. Shiro lays a kiss in his hair, adding, “And you’re not being clingy.”

Keith scoffs at that, rubbing his face on Shiro’s collarbone and clinging tighter.

“Okay, okay,” Shiro allows with a laugh. “But I… like it.”

“Mmm?”

“I like—” His face goes hot. “I like knowing that you want me here. I like feeling that I’m important to you.”

“Shiro.” Keith sounds almost offended. “How could you not know? You’re… you’re the  _ most _ important thing to me. I love you.”

The smile growing on Shiro’s face couldn’t be stopped by Haggar herself, and the thought of her doesn’t even sting right now. “I love you, too. Hey. Come up here? I want to kiss you and that's hard to do when your mouth is all the way down there.”

“I've got some other places you could kiss,” Keith says, but there's no bite to the words and he's grinning when he lifts his face to Shiro's. Shiro brings their mouths together, Keith's fingers grip Shiro's hair, and they lose track of time for a while.

Eventually, Keith asks between lazy nudges of lips, “You really can’t sleep?”

“No, unfortunately. I keep trying, but…”

“I’ve got a guaranteed cure for insomnia.”

“Yeah?”

“Yup. Blowjob followed by a full-body massage. Want to try?”

“Oh my god, Keith. Yes, I want to try.” Shiro also wants to know where Keith learned that trick, but maybe now isn’t the time to ask.

The press of Keith’s mouth leaves fire in its wake, a trail straight down his chest and stomach as Keith gets right to work. With the first wet touch of tongue on his cock, all Shiro’s nervous energy transmutes into an entirely different sort of tension.

In the last moments of coherence before Keith's mouth drags all the sense out of him, Shiro can feel something settle inside himself. He's here, he's out of the astral plane and solidly real under Keith's hands, and Keith is here, too, and they fit together in ways Shiro hadn't even let himself imagine before. His love for Keith is deep-rooted and woven all through him — deep enough, established enough, that it could break through Haggar’s hold even at her strongest.

And Keith loves him, too, regardless of the fragmented mess in his head.

He can sort the rest out later. They have time.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

**coda:**

Shiro wakes from the best night of sleep he's had in longer than he can remember to the sound of Lance's voice in the hall just outside Black's sleeping quarters.

“Jeez, Keith, you could’ve just hung a sock on the doorknob. Did you really have to put your wolf on guard duty? We couldn’t even bring you guys dinner! Oh, wait, I guess the lions don't have doorknobs. But that's no excuse!”

From behind Shiro's shoulder, Keith grumbles just loud enough to be heard through the door. “Go  _ away, _ Lance. We're sleeping.”

“Ha! You answered me, which means that obviously you're not sleeping. Come on, guys, reunion cuddling needs to pause until after breakfast. Hunk made omelette things and they look really good, if you can get past the blue color.”

“Do you think he'd respect a No Soliciting sign?” Keith asks.

“I'm trying to feed you breakfast! Don't let Hunk's efforts go to waste. Shiro, aren't you hungry? Keith's half alien, he's got an excuse for his weirdness, but  _ you _ have to be starving by now. Even Black thinks so, don’t you, girl? That’s why you let me in, right? Because Shiro needs to eat? Come on, dude, let us take care of you.” There’s a pause, and then a snorting noise. “Hunk’s rubbing off on me. I’m feeding people now.”

“And what if I wanted to sleep more instead?” Shiro asks placidly, snuggling deeper into Keith’s embrace.

“Don't think we didn't hear what you two were up to in there last night.” Oh no, and now Pidge is in on it. Were he and Keith really that loud? “You burned a lot of calories.”

“Guys, breakfast!” Hunk calls from outside. “We need to refuel ourselves, too! Especially you, Shiro!”

Shiro's face heats, and Keith buries his face in the juncture of Shiro's neck and shoulder with a pitiful groan that makes Shiro's heart squeeze.

Yep, he thinks. That's his team.

It's good to be back.

 


End file.
